A road-safety campaigner has condemned as "outrageously irresponsible" high-speed driving and car tricks on public roads shown in a popular YouTube video. The three-minute collection of clips of high-speed manoeuvres, titled Arab Drifting, Car Tricks, has been viewed more than 2.2 million times since it was posted on the video-sharing website in May 2007, with the UAE among the countries with most viewers, according to YouTube statistics.
Drivers are shown spinning their cars at speed on roads lined with spectators and driving cars and sport-utility vehicles on two wheels along streets being used by regular traffic. The video is believed to have been recorded in Saudi Arabia. Peter Richardson, the general manager of the Emirates Driving Institute and a campaigner for safer roads in the UAE, said the video showed what should never take place on public roads.
"I admire people who can do that type of technique, but that kind of high-speed driving should be strictly confined to the race track or the rally track. "Anything like that on public roads has got to be condemned as outrageously irresponsible and juvenile. Such use of a vehicle can have dangerous repercussions after the manoeuvres have ended, he said, "because it causes massive wear effect on the tyres, which are subsequently used for normal motoring, because it creates a higher risk of the tyre blowing out rather than slowly deflating.
They then drive their cars around on the normal road next to you and me." Drifting is now a legitimate motorsport with international competitions held in strictly controlled conditions; Abu Dhabi is to host a drift competition next month. jhenzell@thenational.ae